1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to computer data storage and more specifically to a method for providing emulated flexible magnetic storage medium using network storage services.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer hardware platforms use traditional magnetic storage media, referred to as “floppy disks,” to store certain files and disk images related to system configuration, recovery and management. A floppy disk drive is a system used to access the floppy disk media. The floppy disk drive is commonly supported within the well-known x86-based personal computer (PC) system architecture via a set of standard “INT 13 BIOS services” that are provided on all standard PCs. This ubiquitous support for floppy disk drives has allowed software developers to rely on the floppy disk as the media of choice for storing certain software modules. Consequently, systems vendors typically use floppy disk drive media to store driver software used to configure low-level aspects of system hardware.
Recently, however, a new diskless computing device market has developed where the floppy disk drive is arguably a costly legacy hardware component. Nonetheless, certain software, particularly installation software used to initially configure a diskless computing device, is oftentimes still configured so that it can be accessed only by using a floppy disk. For this reason, diskless computing devices oftentimes still include floppy disk drives.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is a technique for supporting floppy disk media access on diskless computing platforms so that true diskless computing devices, without floppy disks, can be effectively implemented.